FIRE IN THE MOUNTAINS

from American Shooting Journal - October 2021

ROADHUNTER: THE CRITICAL MOMENTS ON EITHER SIDE OF THE SHOT

Kish Justice with the Sig Sauer Cross Rifle and one of his bear hounds, 8 Track, and two of his hunting partners, Cade Clemens (left) and Justice’s son Anse (right), pose with a West Virginia bruin taken on an outing with author Larry Case.

On the trail of black bears with the young hunters of West Virginia.

STORY AND PHOTOS BY LARRY CASE

Two “strike dogs” ride on top of a pickup’s custom dog box, sniffing for bear tracks as the rig rolls through the forest.

Cade Clemens and Anse Justice are bear hunters. This is not too unusual, seeing as how both are from West Virginia and they live in the Appalachian Mountains. We West Virginians take pride in being a stronghold for hunters and outdoorsmen, and Cade and Anse are every bit of that. Thing is, Cade is 13 years old and Anse is a ripe old 11.

Both boys have been going on bear hunts since they were, well, little, as in toddler-size. And they come by it naturally; Cade’s dad Todd Clemens and Anse’s father Kish Justice are both avid bear hunters and have included their sons in their extensive ramblings around the mountains near Richwood, West Virginia. If there is a bright spot in the darkness that is declining hunter numbers these days, it is fathers and children like these.

Oh, by the way, Anse has a sister named Arlo, and she also joins Dad and her brother on bear hunts. Arlo is every bit of five years old and has already taken her first bear!

AN OLD MOUNTAIN TRADITION

Anse, Cade and Arlo are being steeped in a hunting tradition that in this area goes back to colonial times. The first brave hunters and settlers who came west of the Alleghenies found a wealth of game in the mountains, including bears.

Black bears were plentiful and were an important food source and trade item to the early settlers in the mountains. Bear meat was highly prized and even more important was the rendered fat, which could be used in cooking, protecting leather items, fuel for oil lamps, and everything from skin care to lubricating metal hinges. Bear hides were bought, sold and bartered to be used for leather and other goods.

These early hunters knew that one of the best ways to successfully take bears in the mountains was with the use of dogs, usually hounds. Early bear hunters quickly started to develop a bear hound that not only had a good nose for trailing, but also had great stamina to run long races in the mountains. And they had to have something else: grit. Bear hunters will often use the term “gritty” for the trait in hounds that will make them stay when they get in close quarters with a bruin. Without the hound’s desire to fight a bear, it could never make the bear climb a tree until the hunters arrive, or “bay” the animal if he refuses to climb a tree. The bear that stays on the ground and refuses to climb a tree (often a big male bear) can be a problem and will often hurt some dogs, sometimes killing them.

TWO DAYS HUNTING WITH CADE AND ANSE

I rode in the same truck with the boys and Anse’s father, Kish. It was an education, to say the least, and this wasn’t exactly my first bear hunt. Early the first morning, Kish took a couple of his best dogs and placed them on top of the custom dog box on the back of his pickup truck. The dogs, which ride here as he slowly cruises the mountain roads, are known as “strike” dogs. These are the best and experienced bear hounds with keen noses and can be trusted to only open, or bark, when

they smell the track of a bear as the truck rolls by.

As this was happening, I asked young Anse what was going on. “When the strike dog strikes a bear, we turn him loose and listen to see how the track goes. If he is barking loud and it seems he has a good track, we will turn other dogs loose to help him,” he said. Cade added, “We listen for the strike dog’s bark, and you can tell when the dog’s bark changes by how excited he is; then we know we can turn other dogs loose.”

On the second day of the hunt, one chase in particular seemed to go on forever. This bear went over the mountain several times and led the hounds and hunters on a merry chase. Thousands of acres of timber company land, which can border national forest, make a vast area that the hunters sometimes have to cover. One minute you’re stopped in one place as you listen for dogs while the hunters check their electronic locator collars, and the next you’re speeding down a narrow forest road trying to catch up with the dogs and bear as they cross into another drainage in this wild country. It’s probably not for the faint of heart. Cade and Anse seemed to take it all in stride.

A CLOSE ENCOUNTER

Kish Justice and Corey Dauel were hunting together one day during the late season, along with several other members of their crew, on a hunting lease they belong to near Richwood, which is roughly in the center of the Mountain State. This is timber company land and that means several clearcuts in the area. This process of clearing the hillside of all trees makes for some great wildlife habitat as the new growth regenerates. It also makes for an area that is very hard to traverse because the brush is so thick. This day may have started off much like any other bear hunt, but it soon turned into a lot more.

“We found a track in the snow, the dogs jumped this bear, and the chase was on,” Kish recalled. “Corey and I both may have been thinking that we started this bear where we had run a bear back in the spring and had lots of problems ... We had ran this bear in the training season and it bayed on the ground and ended up killing one of our best dogs.”

On this day in season, the chase did not go too far – for a bear chase,

At just 13 and 11 years of age, respectively, Cade (left) and Anse are avid bear hunters in Richwood, West Virginia.

Anse and Cade (holding the Sig Sauer Cross Rifle) stand under a treed bear as a pair of hounds look on.

anyway – and Corey and Kish tried to make their way through the maze of thick saplings, greenbriers, and rocks and old logs on the ground. As often happens, the bear heard them coming and broke away from the dogs before coming to bay again about 200 yards away. When they approached this time, Corey noted that the bear saw him coming (he thinks the bear could see the blaze orange vest he was wearing) and almost immediately charged him.

“It is my fault that I was unprepared,” Corey said. “I had my .44 Magnum Smith & Wesson in my pack, (but) I had not taken it out yet because the brush was so thick.” He added, “I knew better, but that is the situation I was in when the bear came for me.”

As with most bear charges, Corey said that it all happened so fast it is hard to relate. “About all I could do is turn and run downhill,” he said. “The brush and briers and saplings are so thick here, all you can do is push your way through it and hope for the best. I got about 75 or 100 yards down the hill and came to a big log that was about 2 feet off the ground. I made a dive to go under it and I really thought the bear had me. The only thing that saved me was the dogs were on him and the bear broke away and ran off.”

“I have been charged by bears before, but I am not ashamed to admit that this shook me up,” Corey said. “The bear ran around the hill and bayed again. Kish came down the hill and joined me, but it took me several minutes to settle down. When I went under the log, he was right behind me; if it wasn’t for the dogs, he would have been on top of me. All of this only took several seconds.”

When the two hunters advanced on the bayed bear the third time, they were able to get in position and finish the bear with a couple of wellplaced shots. What they found when they examined the bear may have explained some of his behavior.

“We think this was an older bear,” said Kish. “He was around 200 pounds, but he definitely had the appearance of an old bear. Also, he was missing several toes from what we think was the result of frostbite. You don’t see it that often, but this bear could have crawled into a poor-quality den as a young bear and without enough protection, he could have experienced frostbite on several toes during a harsh winter. Along with this, the nose on this bear showed some damage, also probably from frostbite.”

Missing some toes and claws on both front and back feet means this bear could not climb a tree or would have a hard time doing it, so this would account for him staying on the ground. Handicaps aside, make no mistake, this bear was a tough

old veteran of the mountain and was more than capable of defending himself. There is no way to tell for sure, but Kish and Corey believe this is the bear that killed one of their best dogs earlier in the year.

A DAY TO REMEMBER

Some may be surprised to learn that many of the bear hunters here, those who own the dogs, rarely kill a bear on these hunts. Often there will be hunters along who have never taken a bear and once the bear is treed or bayed on the ground, the new hunter is called in to do the shooting. That is what happened this day, as Nathaniel Hambrick of Craigsville, West Virginia, went for a long hike for a treed bear and brought it down with one shot. I’m not sure who was the proudest, Nathaniel or his granddad, Gary Milam, who joined him. Also along for the hunt was Addison Kelly, daughter of Bill Kelly, one of the leaders of this band of bear hunters. It was quite a day for us all.

I watched Cade and Anse through it all. One minute they seemed like sage bear hunters, helping to catch dogs, leading them to the truck, and performing many other bear hunter chores that are required. The next, it was two young boys, racing down a dusty road and laughing at something in that way boys do. I could not help but think, what a great way for these boys to grow up.

There is a fire in these mountains. The fire for hunting that hunters like Kish Justice and Todd Clemens, and now their sons Cade and Anse and

GUN REVIEW: SIG SAUER CROSS RIFLE

TRIED AND TESTED ON A TWO-DAY TREK FOR MOUNTAIN STATE BRUINS

Under full disclosure here, I was less than enthusiastic about taking the Sig Sauer Cross Rifle on this bear hunt. No doubt I am a traditionalist when it comes to firearms and looking at the chassis rifle concept, I was not getting it. And the foldup stock thing; what was that about? All of this changed very quickly.

Sighting in and shooting the rifle prior to the hunt, I immediately noticed the light weight and the “handiness” of the gun. At 6.5 pounds, this rifle is definitely in the bantamweight class, and as I have said many times before, you carry a firearm a lot more while hunting than you shoot it. Weight is important. Adding a scope adds to the weight, depending on choice of the optic. More on that later. In truth, I have always been a fan of a two-stage trigger and found the trigger on the Cross Rifle to be excellent. Kish Justice, the bear hunter, liked it from the first round fired.

The weight and handiness – that is, overall ease with which the rifle can be carried and handled – was not lost on this bear hunting crowd in the mountains. These guys know all about the need for a firearm to be light in weight and easily carried in the god-awful country they traverse on a bear chase. When I first brought out the Sig Sauer Cross Rifle for their scrutiny, I was surprised. Everyone I handed the rifle to liked it. They liked the weight, the ease it could be carried, and again, that handy word. I wondered how the foldup stock would fare with this group, but they embraced it immediately. This group of bear hunters saw instantly what I did not. If you are going to carry a firearm all day in this kind of terrain, the ability to fold the stock and shove the gun in a backpack is a big plus. They loved this feature.

The rifle we carried on this hunt was chambered in .308 Winchester, which is plenty for black bears. The Cross Rifle is also available in 6.5 Creedmoor and .277 Fury. The ammo chosen was the Hornady Black .308 with a 155-grain A-Max bullet. This ammunition fed and cycled in the Cross Rifle with no problems and from all indications performed flawlessly on black bear.

The scope we chose, the Sig Sauer Sierra 3 BDX 4.5-14x44mm, may have been a little big for what we needed. Scope size walks a fine line for this type of hunting. While most of the shots are taken at the short range of a treed bear, it is possible at times for hunters to try shots at a bear on the ground as it passes by. The range here could be 50 to 200 yards, so this makes scope choice tricky.

The Sig Sauer BDX system is a wonder of modern technology. If you desire to take your shooting to the next level of accuracy, then download the BDX smartphone app and configure your rangefinder and riflescope for your exact ballistics and environmental characteristics. In other words, the rangefinder talks to the riflescope! Or, if you prefer, BDX also allows users to bond their rangefinders and sights quickly and easily with preset ballistic groups preloaded onto all BDX products. These preset ballistic groups allow you to use BDX-enabled products without the use of a smartphone app, so they are ready, right out of the box.

In the end, the Sig Sauer Sierra 3 BDX scope did its job without a hitch, and believe me when I say we did not baby it. The scope and the rifle were carried over miles of lessthan-kind terrain, coming in contact with brush, mud, sweat and bear dog slobber. On top of that, they were continually pitched in and out of crowded trucks as the bear chases went through different phases. The rifle and the scope got the full treatment. I never give 5 stars, but I gave both 4½ stars.

Cade and two baying hounds watch a treed bear. his sister Arlo, have for bear hunting. Here’s to hoping this fire never goes out. Here’s to hoping that their children and grandchildren will have the same fire.  Editor’s note: Larry Case has been a devoted outdoorsman since he was a child. He will admit to an addiction to turkey hunting (spring and fall), but refuses any treatment. He enjoys the company of gobblers and cur dogs that are loud and people who speak the truth softly. Case served 36 years as a game warden in West Virginia and retired with the rank of district captain. You can check out his podcast and other stories at gunsandcornbred.com.